A New Year, a New Way of Writing: Write by Midnight

The New Year has barely begun, and it’s brimming with possibilities. As writers, it’s traditional to resolve each year to make writing a priority and finish that first draft, revision or submission. 2017 is no different, except the WriteOwls have created a plan to help us stick to our good intentions to write every day. We invite you to join us as we “Write by Midnight.”

Write by Midnight aims to help you incorporate writing into your days without putting the rest of your life on hold. We, like you, have families to take care of, work deadlines to meet and a myriad of other obligations and extracurricular activities that make us who we are. All of those things inform our writing styles and voices, so the goal of Write by Midnight is to embrace them while we include writing in the mix of our daily routines.

This month, we’ll begin laying a solid groundwork for a year of writing success and then dive in with a write-a-thon for the month of February to turn those goals into a sustainable habit of writing every day–by midnight. We will encourage you to analyze what works for you as a writer, as well as what doesn’t, and then to set your own daily goals. Whether your goal is to write 500 words a day, revise a scene, complete an outline or develop your voice, we invite you to set yourself up for success by creating realistic expectations that push you to become a better, consistently productive writer.

Each Wednesday in the coming weeks, we’ll give you a prompt that will prepare you to hit the ground running when Write by Midnight launches on Feb. 1. We hope our suggestions will get you in the right frame of mind to make progress on your writing project once the write-a-thon begins so you can achieve your goals by the end of the month. With that in mind, here’s your first challenge:

Write by Midnight Challenge #1:

Spend the next week taking stock of how you really spend your time. How long does it take you to do the regular activities that make up your life? If you take a moment to record the minutes you spend commuting, cooking dinner, checking social media or interacting with family, you might be surprised at how much–or little–time certain things take. Noting the flow of your daily schedule might be a time-consuming task this week, but the insights you’ll gain from the effort will allow you to pinpoint time that you might be able to convert to writing time. Could you, for example, DVR a favorite television show, skip the commercials during playback, and spend those gained minutes writing?

You can plug into Write by Midnight through WriteOwls.com and by following us on Twitter @WriteOwls #writebymidnight for peeks into our progress, shared tips and resources, and daily Write by Midnight inspiration.

We look forward to sharing our journeys with you in the coming days and hope you’ll share your progress with us along the way, too.

9 responses to “A New Year, a New Way of Writing: Write by Midnight”

I’m so excited to start 2017 with a plan for my writing. I was able to write regularly but not daily in 2016. Now I’m looking forward to using the Write by Midnight challenge to help me work writing into my schedule–every day.

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Welcome To WriteOwls

The WriteOwls blog about writing and the writing life. We primarily write picture books, middle grade, and young adult fiction. As each of us shares her unique writing experiences, influences, motivations, and resources, our joint goal is to enrich our writing journeys and yours.